Live Video: Frank Fairfield on The Roadhouse

Two weeks ago, old time blues musician Frank Fairfield stopped by The Roadhouse with Greg Vandy to play songs from his new album and some traditional favorites. While just in his mid-twenties, Fairfield is a man out of time, looking and playing the part of a 20’s Dust Bowl rambler, with ankle-high wool trousers, buttoned up oxford, tweed coat and hair waved with enough Dapper Dan pomade to make Ulysses Everett McGill jealous. But lest you think this all some hipster affectation, one listen to Fairfield’s deft fingerpickin’ and rustic voice, you wouldn’t be able to imagine him any other way. And despite his youth, his breadth of knowledge of pre-war American music is wider than some thrice is age: he collects shellac phonographs and has his own radio show on which he plays his old 78s.

Armed with his banjo, guitar and his grandfather’s fiddle, Fairfield only lacked the coffee can typically at his feet when he plays farmers markets where he resides in Southern California, as he performed these songs live on The Roadhouse:

This man is a fine musician, but as authentic as his work may be, he falls into that same category as the New Lost City Ramblers and the like in that he is a preservationist rather than a creator. I would suspect that, with his talent, he will need to move on and ‘become himself” rather than inhabit the bodies of dead men. Maybe he’s the next Bob Dylan ….. I wish him well, will look out for the record, but for my part I still prefer Doc Boggs and Gus Cannon, crackles and all.